The Shrine of Grendel
by Saucery
Summary: In which goblins make Merlin and Arthur have sex. Hey, somebody had to do it! We don't have aliens in this fandom, after all!


**Author's Note:**

I began writing this story during season 1, when the identity of Merlin's father was still a mystery. Ergo, I felt comfortable inventing an 'immaculate conception' scenario with Hunith, which probably seems like a weird thing to be mentioning in a story which is basically about Merlin and Arthur having sex, but trust me, it's relevant. To the plot. Such as it is. Um.

Right, yes, carry on.

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**THE SHRINE OF GRENDEL****  
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**- Chapter I -  
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"You shall not pass."

Arthur looked down at a wrinkly, pock-marked, wispy-haired head.

"Really?" He curved his hand around his sword, allowing his fingers to stroke the hilt. He wasn't normally given to threatening miniscule woodland creatures, but this one had just _talked_, and it was barring the way to Grendel's Shrine. "Because if I don't pass through these woods, this sword might pass through _you_."

The little elf-ling - or whatever it was - barely twitched. It only reached the height of Arthur's knees, and wore the most threadbare robes imaginable, but it nonetheless managed to project an air of indifferent superiority. "You shall not pass," it reiterated, blandly. "This is our land."

"No, it's not. Last time I checked, it belonged to someone named Grendel."

"That is correct." The creature's ears, each as long as a sheaf of corn, perked up. "It belongs to Grendel. I am his great-granddaughter."

Arthur stared. And then - after a bout of incredulous blinking - stared some more. "I'm sorry, _what_?"

"My name is Ethel."

"Wait. No - wait. First of all, you're a _girl_?"

The creature sighed a much put-upon sigh, as if this were a question it - she? - were asked all too often. "I am Ethel. Matriarch of the Eastern Tribe. Keeper of the Crown and Guardian of the Shrine."

"You're... a priestess? And, just a minute - a tribe of _what_?"

"Goblins," Ethel said, in a tone of bored contempt, somehow managing to imply that in her not-so-humble opinion, Arthur was an ignoramus. "And I'm the queen, not the priestess. Which is precisely why, when I say that you shall not pass, it is inevitable that you shall not - "

"ARTHUR!" A voice rang through the clearing - and then Merlin stumbled into it, careening out of the underbrush, looking even more ridiculous than usual thanks to the leaves in his hair. "_There_ you are!"

"Yes, here I am. Congratulations on getting lost in the midst of our epic quest to save the kingdom. I'm sure the people of Camelot will thank you for it."

"Oh, shut up," Merlin groused. "It wasn't _my_ fault. The forest here is weird. All these... these vine-like things kept trying to, I don't know, _molest_ me - I could barely walk five paces without tripping on something."

"Like that's new," Arthur muttered, trying not to think about Merlin and tentacled plants and molestation. "Look, we have a problem. There's this goblin blocking our path, and I'd have cut it down already, except that then you'd mope around for ages that I'd actually _killed_ something, and Camelot might end up under another curse." He glared, unhappy about having to make such a surreal introduction. "Merlin," he ground out, "meet Ethel, Queen of the Goblins. Ethel, meet Merlin. My manservant."

"Ah. Er, hullo," said Merlin, nodding at the goblin with the sort of shy, dimpled grin that made Arthur wonder again about magical molesting vines and Merlin's susceptibility to them. _Obviously_, if Merlin went around looking so - well, so _dimpled_ - it was no wonder he'd get assaulted by foliage! Even the flowers would want to deflower him. Not that Arthur would ever entertain the idea, of course, but... "Excuse me, Ethel. May I pass? I'm heading for the Shrine of Grendel."

"Certainly," said the goblin queen, her voice suddenly breathy and her squinty little eyes suddenly saucer-wide. "Whatever you wish, dear boy. I cannot countenance the insult it would do the Old Religion not to let _you_ through." She bowed, bending at her waist - which, given her already tiny size, brought her forehead practically to the ground.

Arthur couldn't believe it. "Now, see here," he said, "_I'm_ the prince. This is merely my stubborn and poorly-coordinated servant. Where's _my_ bow?"

"He is Emrys," the queen said tersely, her voice gone cold again, as if Arthur were the winter to all her summers. "Son of the Old Religion and Savior of Albion. You are nowhere _near_ his equal in power, human. You'd do well to remember that."

So stunned was Arthur by this bizarre and patently untrue proclamation that he just stood there, hand still on his hilt, his mouth hanging open.

A peasant, more powerful than a _prince_? No wonder this 'queen' of the goblins called herself Ethel and dressed herself in rags; the goblins must have some outlandish ideas about royalty. It was true that Merlin was magical and a child of prophecy - _that_ much was clear after Merlin had taken him to visit the Great Dragon ("I think it's about time I introduced you to him," he'd said) - but it didn't make Merlin _greater_ in any respect.

And what was that about being 'human'? Merlin was as human as he was, last time Arthur had checked. Which wasn't too long ago, considering that he'd seen Merlin bathing in the nude at the riverbank, just this morning.

Merlin wasn't even _bigger_. By much. He certainly couldn't be greater.

"Um," said Merlin, "actually, he's. With me. As a friend. He's my friend."

Ethel eyed Arthur suspiciously. "For a friend, he speaks of you with great disdain."

"That's just his way," shrugged Merlin. "But he's saved my life many times over, and he's my destined - he's my - he just needs to come with me, all right? This is his quest even more than it is mine. _He's_ the one that needs Grendel's Crown."

"Then he cannot have it," said Ethel, not without a trace of regret. It must gall her not to be able to cater to her Magnificent Magical Messiah. "The Crown was smelted in the mines of Coblynau, fashioned from the purest gold and forged in the purest magic. Grendel bejeweled it with crystals of his own precious blood. It is not for your friend to have, Merlin, though _you_ may have it."

"Why him and not me?" Arthur demanded, rousing himself from his embittered befuddlement to glower down at the goblin's wispy-white pate. No one had ever - _ever_ - denied Arthur something in favor of giving it to another. Let alone to a _servant_.

"Emrys is the purest being that walks the earth. None but a child of magic, born unsullied by any mortal race, can claim the Crown. Even Grendel, he who forged the Crown, was impure as a child of Goblins - _you_ would be out of the question."

"What bloody question? If this crown is so damned pure, what makes me _im_pure?"

"You are of Man," Ethel said with obvious distaste. "Emrys, on the other hand, is of Earth."

"I did always call you a clod, Merlin, but I didn't mean it _literally_." Arthur looked Merlin up and down. "So what makes you of Earth, then?"

"Magic," replied Merlin, "I think. And the fact that I didn't have a father. You know how the Dragon says... that I'm magic's child, or something. That's what Ethel must been by 'pure'." Merlin turned to the queen. "Listen, Ethel - please. Arthur needs to claim the crown. It's the only thing that will unite Albion. The one who wears Grendel's crown is said to be the only man worthy to rule the land, but no one has ever succeeded in claiming it. I think Arthur can, though. If anyone can claim the Crown, it's Arthur."

Arthur felt an unaccustomed blush heat his face. Sod it, he probably looked like a _girl_. Stupid Merlin and his stupid untimely compliments. "That's right," he said gruffly, clearing his throat. "If anyone can, I can."

Merlin rolled his eyes. "He's a bit of an arrogant lout, sometimes - or, um, all the time. But I can tell you that he's noble of spirit and pure of heart, as pure as Grendel's blood and the magic that forged the Crown. Please, my lady." Merlin knelt, bringing himself nearly eye-to-eye with the little queen, who looked almost faint with amazement at having the great Emrys kneel before her. "Please, let him pass."

"Uh." Ethel blinked, as if clearing the stars out of her eyes. "Surely..." She smiled coyly, showing rows of alarmingly pointy teeth. "Surely, _you_ can unite the land?"

"_What?_" Arthur hissed.

"I can't," said Merlin hastily. "That isn't my destiny."

"All the magical beings would follow you," Ethel pointed out. "I know _I_ would."

_I'm sure you would,_ grumbled Arthur inwardly, _and a hundred other things, too, in your perverse goblin imagination._

"No, no." Merlin shook his head. "No, Ethel. To unite Albion is not only to unite the world of magic, or the world of men - it is to unite them _both_. The race of men, which holds sway over more land and water than any other race, will not follow me. I'm just a peasant boy."

"How dare they!" Ethel exclaimed.

"Well, it's the truth. They'll follow Arthur, though, who's of royal blood. And since I will be - um - forever at his side, the magical world will follow him, too."

"Hmm." Ethel looked skeptical, but she was giving Arthur an assessing look - which, despite her diminutive stature, made Arthur want to stand up taller.

He manfully resisted - for a total of two seconds - before his shoulders straightened despite themselves.

Damn it. How could a _miniature goblin queen_ have the same expression as Uther Pendragon? It defied belief.

"He doesn't look like much," Ethel said, making Arthur wonder if perhaps all goblins were _blind_ as well as daft, "and it doesn't matter if he is pure of heart. He can't enter the Shrine. Even if I were to take you both to it, only you, Emrys, would be able to enter. The gate simply wouldn't let your companion pass; the magic would kill him if he tried."

Merlin went white. "_Kill_ him?"

"He is of Man." Ethel spoke as if that in itself were deserving of the death penalty. "No man can enter the Shrine."

"She doesn't think you're much of a man, then," murmured Arthur to Merlin. "Can't say I disagree."

"Be quiet, Arthur," said Merlin, daring to be insubordinate with his face still painfully wan. Idiot. And here Arthur was, trying to cheer him up... "Is there no way, Ethel? No way at all? Camelot's neighboring kingdoms are threatening war; nothing except Grendel's Crown would unite them. That's the whole reason Arthur and I came here in the first place..."

"And that's the reason we're going to go through with it." Arthur reached down and pulled Merlin to his feet. "Queen Ethel, you shall let us pass."

"But you'll die," Ethel repeated, apparently taking great relish in saying it.

"Yes," said Arthur dryly, "So I heard. But I can't return without trying. I can't leave Camelot - and the people of Albion - embroiled in a war that might last generations."

"Don't you go being all noble and suicidal again," Merlin snapped. "You've done that enough to last me a lifetime. If it won't work, it won't work. We're going back home."

"But it _could_ work. For all we know, the goblin is lying to us."

"I would never lie to Emrys!" Ethel sounded appalled.

"How do we know?" Arthur tugged Merlin forward, past the queen. "And even if it's true, it changes nothing. I can't return to Camelot without at least _trying_ to get the Crown. I can't fail in my duty."

"It isn't your duty to _die_!" Merlin dug his heels into the forest floor, refusing to move.

What, didn't Merlin know by now? "Of course it is," Arthur said. "A prince should be willing to die for his people."

"But you _can't_! Not yet!" Merlin wrestled free of Arthur's grasp, fixing his hand on Arthur's arm instead. "We're going back," he said fiercely, pulling backwards.

"Then you can go back alone. I'm going - "

"You're _not_!"

"Let go of me - "

"I _won't_!"

"STOP!" cried a shrill voice, and both Arthur and Merlin froze in the midst of their tug-of-war. They stared down at Ethel, who looked harried and fed-up and more like a tired grandmother than a queen.

"What?" they asked, in unison. Arthur didn't relax his hold Merlin, lest he lose ground; Merlin didn't slacken his grip, either.

"It would pain you," Ethel said to Merlin, "if he died."

"What?" said Merlin again, but his face had gone from shocky white to flaming red in a surprisingly short period of time. "I mean, why? I mean, yes. Sort of. Maybe. A little."

"Your loyalty to me is astounding," Arthur observed wryly. "You can be _a little pained_ when I enter the Shrine, then."

"I'll bludgeon you into unconsciousness before you ever get there," Merlin growled.

"Ah, friendship. When you care enough to bludgeon someone."

"_You_ try befriending a suicidal prat."

"I have, actually." Arthur glanced at his arm, where Merlin's hand was still attached like a vise. "And I have to admit, bludgeoning _has_ occurred to me..."

Merlin made a face. To Ethel, he said: "Sorry. What were you, er. What were you saying?"

"I must know," said the goblin queen, and there was an odd solemnity in her voice - utterly unlike the coldness she'd shown to Arthur before, or the mawkish adoration she'd shown to Merlin. "I _must_ know if it would pain you."

"Why?" Merlin asked quietly.

Arthur held his breath. Merlin had gone stock-still, and there was suddenly a strange tension in the line of his shoulders, as if a flood were being held at bay by their strength alone.

"I must," she said, "because if it _would_, as it appears it might, then... Then there might be a way."

"A way for what?"

"For your friend to enter the Shrine."

Merlin shivered. Arthur found himself, here in the woods with a goblin queen and his idiot servant, suddenly spell-bound. The forest held _still_, as if Merlin's stillness compelled it to stillness, as well. Silence wove itself around them like gold-wrought thread, heavy and glittering, and the sunlight settled in Merlin's hair as if drawn to the very shape of his form.

For the first time - even more than the numerous times Merlin had performed spells in front of him - Arthur understood what magic _meant_. And that, whatever magic was, Merlin was _made_ of it; he reverberated with it, made the air around them tremble, made Arthur's skin pebble with the hottest chills.

"Answer me," said the queen, and her words waded into the silence like flies into amber. "Would it pain you if he died?"

Merlin looked at him, then - and there was something in Merlin's eyes that made Arthur gasp - something wild-lit and dark, something not at all servile and not at all safe. A hint of the forest, of shadow-dappled ground, of undergrowth. A hint of birdsong and moonless night.

"Yes," Merlin said - and that single word exploded the silence around them in a breathless rush, sunlight fractured into exquisite shards of white - and Arthur barely had the time to flinch before it had all disappeared, gone as if it had never existed, the forest rustling around them like a thing brought back to life. "Yes," Merlin repeated, and his voice had a sibilant depth to it that echoed in Arthur's ear like the voice of Time.

Arthur realized that he was shaking.

It would've been _humiliating_, had Arthur even been able to think past what was happening - but all he could think of was Merlin's _Yes_, and the foreignness, the _otherness_ in Merlin's eyes. Like Merlin wasn't the boy he knew. Like Merlin was someone else altogether.

_You are nowhere **near** his equal in power, human. You'd do well to remember that._

No. Merlin was - Merlin was -

"Arthur?" said Merlin, and Arthur found himself gazing into Merlin's perfectly ordinary eyes - honest and blue and wide. He'd wavered unsteadily in Merlin's grasp, and Merlin looked concerned.

_Merlin_. Looking concerned. This _was_ humiliating. "I'm fine," said Arthur, straightening and shaking Merlin off of him. This time, Merlin let him go. "So?" Arthur tried not to sound like he had something caught in his throat. "He... He said yes. So what?" Better not to think about what it _meant_ - that Merlin had lost control of his magic like that, had just let it _go_, at the mere thought of Arthur's death.

"He has Claimed you," the queen said, sounding distinctly disappointed. "Oh, well. I suppose that even Emrys would feel the need to Claim a single being, despite his duty to all."

"Claim..." Arthur trailed off, glancing at Merlin - who was red-faced again, and inexplicably fidgety where he stood next to Arthur. "What does that mean?"

"It means that, upon the completion of certain rituals, you should be able to follow him into the Shrine."

Really? Such a sudden change of fortunes seemed suspicious. There _must_ be a catch. "Why didn't you tell us before, then, if there was a way?"

"Because I had not known," Ethel sulked, "that Emrys had pledged his life."

"You've pledged your _life_ to me?" Arthur regarded Merlin disbelievingly. Although, in retrospect, Merlin _had_ risked his life for Arthur several times already...

Merlin looked away. Even the back of his _neck_ was red. "Could you," he begged Ethel through clenched teeth, "try _not_ to humiliate me? Please."

"I don't see why I shouldn't," she replied, "since you've been foolish enough to choose a child of Man." Her tone grew chastising. "Emrys, you are the greatest of our kind, and never again will one such as you walk upon the earth. But you are yet young; you should reflect upon your choices."

Arthur didn't appreciate the implication that he was the sort of choice that required penitent reflection. Especially since Merlin had chosen him of his own free will, and -

"Destiny chose him for me," Merlin said, evidently not thrilled about the choice, either.

Pillock.

The queen sighed. "Destiny is merely mortal choice, made immortal by conviction."

"And his conviction is immortal, is it?" Arthur couldn't resist trying to tease Merlin - but Merlin wasn't meeting his eyes, wasn't looking at him at all. It was strange and uncomfortable, and Arthur felt oddly bereft.

"So it seems," said Ethel wearily. "Come, then, if you wish to see the Shrine." She turned and began trudging through the fallen leaves. "Follow me."

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**to be continued.**

No sexy tiemz today, darlings. Sorry! Wait for the next installment; I'll do my best to post it soon!


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